As mayor, he had the law in his hand; as a man, he had indulgence on his lips and connivance in his heart: he was just the magistrate required in times of the _coups d'etat_ of the faubourgs.
Petion allowed them to make all their preparations without appearing to see them, and legalised them whenever they were completed.
II.
His early connection with Brissot had drawn him towards Madame Roland.
The ministry of Roland, Claviere, and Servan obeyed him more than even the king, he was present at all their consultations, and although their fall did not involve him, it wrested the executive power from his grasp.
The expelled Girondists had no need to infuse their thirst of vengeance into the mind of Petion.

Unable any longer to conspire legally against the king, with his ministers, he yet could conspire with the factions against the Tuileries.

The national guards, the people, the Jacobins, the faubourgs, the whole city, were in his hands; thus he could give sedition to the Girondists to aid this party to regain the ministry; and he gave it them with all the hazards--all the crimes that sedition carries with it.

Amongst these hazards was the assassination of the king and his family: this event was beforehand accepted by those who provoked the assembly of the populace, and their invasion of the king's palace.
Girondists, Orleanists, Republicans, Anarchists, none of these parties perhaps actually meditated this crime, but they looked upon it as an eventuality of their fortune.

Petion, who doubtless did not desire it, at least risked it; and if his intention was innocent, his temerity was a murder.